Erykah Badu
Erykah Badu
Erykah Abi Wright, better known by her stage name Erykah Badu, is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, activist, and actress. Badu's career began after opening a show for D'Angelo in 1994 in her hometown; record label executive Kedar Massenburg was highly impressed with her performance and signed her to Kedar Entertainment. Her first album, Baduizm, was released on February 11, 1997. It spawned three singles: "On & On", "Next Lifetime" and "Otherside of the Game". The album was certified triple...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionR&B Singer
Date of Birth26 February 1971
CityDallas, TX
CountryUnited States of America
I have the ability to sing with emotion and feeling, but if you say I sound like Billie Holiday, that's cool. Let's look at who Billie was: she was this person, this singer, this beautiful diva who could move the audience with the slightest gesture of her hand.
A home birth is about being able to create exactly what you want, because it's such a violent moment inside of the body that you want everything else to be as beautiful as it can be.
I thought the Billie Holiday comparison was beautiful. I think, Wow, what a wonderful, creative, helpful spirit. She's someone who wanted to help others by sharing her emotion. That's what I do, too, so I think that's a great comparison.
I know that I want to concentrate more on my inside-pretty than my outside-pretty, because thats gonna go away. But if your inside is beautiful, it never wears away. The light always shows on the outside if you are striving to be good inside.
I lived in Brooklyn for a couple of years. The community is very close-knit already. I remember it was raining that day, so it was a weird kind of funk on the crowd. It was so endearing to feel everybody coming together. It was almost like a cleansing. It felt super-new, renewing.
It was a really good experience for all of us. We each used our platforms to make other statements besides entertainment. We're artists who are often unheard. And Dave has chosen to define himself. I'm with that and I love him for that.
Erykah Badu projects don't even sound like Erykah Badu projects. I don't even have one album that sounds like another one of my albums.
When you're performing, you're creating a moment.
I don't have any particular thing I do ritualistically. I do the same thing every day. I get up. Drink a lot of water. Have a wheatgrass shot. Drink some green juice. Eat as healthy as I can.
I've been a vegetarian since I was 19.
During childbirth and hospice I'll sing gospel songs that my grandma taught me when I was younger, or something I've made up, or I'll hum. I just play things that I think the audience will like.
I have so much music that I do. Just like how a visual artist is always sketching something but they might not share it, I'm always writing songs or coming up with melodic lines on piano or guitar. It's therapy. It's always happening.
If you want to relate to a certain audience or generation, you have to speak their language. I truly believe that.
Anything that had to do with art I been doing all my life. It was a gift. It's nothing I work real hard at doing.